Under the leadership of IIPH, and in collaboration with IA, ICRH, IGH and IPPH, CIHR has developed the Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (HeLTI). HeLTI follows a Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) approach, which explores how the interaction of environmental factors with genes prior to and during conception, pregnancy, infancy and early childhood impacts an individual’s health later in life. HeLTI combines a unique set of coordinated and linked international intervention cohorts to focus the DOHaD approach specifically on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) both in Canada and in countries where there is a high incidence of NCDs.

NCDs, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases are also a priority issue for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Therefore, with input from Indigenous communities, and in collaboration with other CIHR Institutes, IIPH decided to lead the development of an Indigenous component of HeLTI (I-HeLTI) to address similar issues faced by and specific to Indigenous Peoples in Canada. In 2018, CIHR awarded 11 development grants and held a strengthening workshop for the I-HeLTI program. The development grants targeted Indigenous communities. This decision represented a paradigm shift that ensured Indigenous Peoples were at the forefront of research. Moving forward, IIPH and other CIHR Institutes will support I-HeLTI team grants.